TRICK, HOWEVER, IN MUCH DANGER--THE DOCTOR FINESSES WITH A GOOD HEART,
BUT DIAMONDS ARE CUTTING ARTICLES.

Two days had elapsed after my incursions upon the "wild Irishers,"
during which our surgeon had kept himself closely to his cabin, when he
wrote a letter on service to the captain, requesting a survey upon his
self-libelled rotundity of body. The captain, according to the laws of
the service, "in that case made and provided," forwarded the letter to
the port-admiral, who appointed the following day for the awful
inspection. As I said before, the skipper and his first-lieutenant had
laid down a scheme of a counter-plot, and they now began to put it into
execution. Immediately that Dr Thompson had received his answer, he
began to dose himself immoderately with tartarised antimony and other
drugs, to give his round and hitherto ruddy countenance the pallor of
disease. He commenced getting up his invaliding suit.

It had been a great puzzle to his brother officers, to understand what
two weasan-faced mechanical-looking men, from the shore, had been doing
in his cabin the greater part of the night. They did not believe, as
the doctor intimated, that they were functionaries of the law, taking
instructions for his last will and testament; though the astute surgeon
had sent a note to Mr Farmer, the first-lieutenant, with what he
thought infinite cunning, to know, in case of anything fatal happening
immediately to the writer, whether his friend would prefer to have
bequeathed to him the testator's double-barrelled fowling piece, or his
superb Manton's duelling-pistols. Mr Farmer replied, "that he would
very willingly take his chance of both."

At twelve o'clock everything was ready. The survey was to take place in
the captain's cabin. Dr Thompson sends for his two assistants, and
then, for the first time for three days, he emerges, leaning heavily
upon both his supporters.

Can this be the jovial and rubicund doctor? Whose deadly white face is
that, that peers out from under the shadow of an immense green shade?
The lips are livid--the corners of the mouth drawn down--and yet there
is a triumphant sneer in their very depression. The officers gather
round him, he lifts up his head slowly, and then looks round and shakes
it despondingly. His eyes are dreadfully bloodshot. His mess-mates,
the young ones especially, begin to think that his illness is real.
There is the real sympathy of condolence in the greeting